Monday, December 08, 2008

Shenzhen Daily reported that the city was named a UNESCO City of Design, becoming the sixth city to be honored.

After reading through the article, I have to wonder why it's just being announced today when Shenzhen was bestowed the distinction on November 19. I've also been wondering what this means. The article claims that Shenzhen "holds a solid position in the design sector...and reputation for novel practices in packaging design." Where did UNESCO get this information? Do they realize this city is the outsourcing center for the world and produces other companies' designs? This is the capital of counterfeit. Where is the innovation they claim to have seen? Maybe they were talking about the architecture--like the imitation European towns or foreign-designed buildings.

In the same day, Shenzhen Dailyalso reported that the city is the 9th most expensive city in the world for expatriates. However, I doubt the validity of the survey that determined this because Beijing is ranked 5th and I didn't think it was more expensive on my visits. Shenzhen is certainly one of the most expensive cities in China, and the standard of living is higher than many other places in the world, but I haven't found it to be prohibitively expensive. What are the 125 consumer goods that the survey looked at to determine this? If cheese and coffee were included, then yes, Shenzhen is quite pricey.

No comments:

About The Waiguoren

A former foreign devil from New Jersey in a foreign land of 1.4 billion. Traveling the country, reading books, and watching movies fill in the days. Drinks and adventures abound in the gan bei world called China.